A new school barometer

While it may conjure up fears of Big Brother, tracking students from kindergarten through high school, if properly done, ought to improve education.
Starting this school year, the names of 1.5 million public school students will be entered into a new computerized central database that will be used to track test scores, enrollment and other information. The data culled from the program should give parents, educators, researchers and administrators new insight into what works and what doesn't in New Jersey schools.
Without individual identifiers, graduation rates are simply abstract numbers. With them, it is possible to know whether the students who entered a high school in ninth grade are the same ones who graduated four years later. In a state with more than 600 school districts, where many children, particularly those in poor districts, move multiple times during their school years, a method to follow them is a valuable tool.

Tracking students may help educators discover a link between courses and college success. The long-term value of preschool education might also be better understood. The effectiveness of individual teachers also could be traced.
Tracking may even help with more basic concerns. In recent years, there have been several cases of school kids being found abused, neglected or even dead. A tracking system might have alerted authorities to a child who was once enrolled in a school but was no longer enrolled there or anywhere else.
Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year to educate children. Thousands of state and local employees spend countless hours administering tests and preparing students to take them. All of this is designed to improve student achievement. Yet, until this year, there has been no way to know for sure what was working for individual students.
Tracking won't cure all that ails public education, but it represents the basic use of technology that has dominated the marketplace for years and can be of considerable help to schools.
If the state is going to test students and insist that they demonstrate proficiency in various subjects, tracking student performance is a logical next step.